You are here

Death Penalty in AL

Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty supports ending the practice of state killing everywhere but our focus is primarily on accomplishing what we can in Alabama. This section is dedicated to information regarding the death penalty as it relates to Alabama. Please visit the sub-links to the right for more information. Thank you!

Alabama is one of only three states which allow trial judges to override a jury's verdict of life without parole and instead issue the death sentence. Furthermore, Alabama is the only of these three states with judges who are elected officials and the only state in the country that permits judges, without limitation, to override a jury verdict.

More than 80 people currently sit on Alabama's death row because of a judge who exercised judicial override and disregarded the recommendation of jury during the sentencing phase of their trial.

Alabama prison officials carried out the execution of death row inmate William Glenn Boyd using sodium thiopental as one of the drugs in the lethal injection.

Prison spokesman Brian Corbett said the Department of Corrections has enough of the drug to carry out two more executions that have been requested by the attorney general's office. Sodium thiopental was used in the execution of Boyd Thursday night at Holman Prison in Atmore.

We thank the Capital Survey Research Center for so graciously responding to our request for a death penalty survey in Alabama and we thank all who contributed to this survey. It confirms that a solid majority of the people of Alabama believe that the time has come for a moratorium on executions while an independent study is conducted into the fairness of the application of the death penalty. It also confirms that most Alabamians do believe in justice and that candidates running for election can embrace it and win.

"Of all the actions carried out by the state, none warrants more cautious implementation and stringent review than the imposition of the death penalty. Yet in Alabama,this most solemn responsibility remains fraught with inconsistencies and inequities. The structure of the state's criminal justice system and the power given to its trial and appellate judges compromise and limit the ability of capital defendants to get a fair trial and appropriate sentencing."